Online published on 28 February, 2020.
This research is a sociolinguistic study on the aspects of codeswitching in Odia language. It examines the patterns in which the native speakers of Odia in Odisha switch between English and Odia in their everyday conservations. It seeks to delve into the features and factors of this codeswitching. It will strive to answer the ’how’ and ‘why’ questions about Odia-English codeswitching.
The subject of codeswitching has been under study since the beginning of the twentieth century. The analysis of codeswitching is two-fold: Socio-linguistic and Grammatical. Initially, it was dismissed as deviant and random. (Weinreich 1953, 1968). However, the phenomenon was then explained in terms of sociolinguistic conventions. Later on, it came to be observed that intra-sentential codeswitching is governed bysyntactic rulesthatconstrained the switch-pointsto specific morpho-syntacticboundaries instead of random spots.
In the context of Odia and English, which belonged to two different language families and had evolved separately, it was interesting to notice the formation of utterances, either at phrasal or clausal level. The existing conventions that predicted the forms of the sentence parts were found to be validated in the light of compliant structures. In cases of dissonance, the reasons were beyond the grammatical domain.
The functional aspects of the data analysis were carried out on lines of Malik (1994), which suggested a ten-point system which sought to explain why codeswitching took place. Cross-checking with the data obtained from the survey with a questionnaire yielded mixed results. The readings were concentrated to a few common reasons. However, the interview involved explained the low choice of other options in terms of the consciousness with which the speakers codeswitched.
The Codeswitching research of Odia-English mixing gives enough leads and hints on the necessity of deeper study of this area on lines as applied linguistics, speech pathology and communication policy making. It may help the advertising agencies, language conservationists and Odia-language writers to better channel their resources and efforts.
